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Tuesday, October 19, 2010

The War On Terror

By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts

Global Research
October 16, 2010

Does anyone remember the “cakewalk war” that would last six weeks, cost $50-$60 billion, and be paid for out of Iraqi oil revenues?

Does anyone remember that White House economist Lawrence Lindsey was fired by Dubya because Lindsey estimated that the Iraq war could cost as much as $200 billion?

Lindsey was fired for over-estimating the cost of a war that, according to Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes, has cost 15 times more than Lindsey estimated. And the US still has 50,000 troops in Iraq.

Does anyone remember that just prior to the US invasion of Iraq, the US government declared victory over the Taliban in Afghanistan?

Does anyone remember that the reason Dubya gave for invading Iraq was Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, weapons that the US government knew did not exist?

Are Americans aware that the same neoconservarives who made these fantastic mistakes, or told these fabulous lies, are still in control of the government in Washington?

The “war on terror” is now in its tenth year. What is it really all about?

The bottom line answer is that the “war on terror” is about creating real terrorists. The US government desperately needs real terrorists in order to justify its expansion of its wars against Muslim countries and to keep the American people sufficiently fearful that they continue to accept the police state that provides “security from terrorists,” but not from the government that has discarded civil liberties.

The US government creates terrorists by invading Muslim countries, wrecking infrastructure and killing vast numbers of civilians. The US also creates terrorists by installing puppet governments to rule over Muslims and by using the puppet governments to murder and persecute citizens as is occurring on a vast scale in Pakistan today.

Neoconservatives used 9/11 to launch their plan for US world hegemony. Their plan fit with the interests of America’s ruling oligarchies. Wars are good for the profits of the military/security complex, about which President Eisenhower warned us in vain a half century ago. American hegemony is good for the oil industry’s control over resources and resource flows. The transformation of the Middle East into a vast American puppet state serves well the Israel Lobby’s Zionist aspirations for Israeli territorial expansion.

Most Americans cannot see what is happening because of their conditioning. Most Americans believe that their government is the best on earth, that it is morally motivated to help others and to do good, that it rushes aid to countries where there is famine and natural catastrophes. Most believe that their presidents tell the truth, except about their sexual affairs.

The persistence of these delusions is extraordinary in the face of daily headlines that report US government bullying of, and interference with, virtually every country on earth. The US policy is to buy off, overthrow, or make war on leaders of other countries who represent their peoples’ interests instead of American interests. A recent victim was the president of Honduras who had the wild idea that the Honduran government should serve the Honduran people.

The American government was able to have the Honduran president discarded, because the Honduran military is trained and supplied by the US military. It is the same case in Pakistan, where the US government has the Pakistani government making war on its own people by invading tribal areas that the Americans consider to be friendly to the Taliban, al Qaeda, “militants” and “terrorists.”

Earlier this year a deputy US Treasury secretary ordered Pakistan to raise taxes so that the Pakistani government could more effectively make war on its own citizens for the Americans. On October 14 US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ordered Pakistan to again raise taxes or the US would withhold flood aid. Clinton pressured America’s European puppet states to do the same, expressing in the same breath that the US government was worried by British cuts in the military budget. God forbid that the hard-pressed British, still reeling from American financial fraud, don’t allocate enough money to fight America’s wars.

On Washington’s orders, the Pakistani government launched a military offensive against Pakistani citizens in the Swat Valley that killed large numbers of Pakistanis and drove millions of civilians from their homes. Last July the US instructed Pakistan to send its troops against the Pakistani residents of North Waziristan. On July 6 Jason Ditz reported on antiwar.com that “at America’s behest, Pakistan has launched offensives against [the Pakistani provinces of] Swat Valley, Bajaur, South Waziristan, Orakzai,and Khyber.”

A week later Israel’s US Senator Carl Levin (D,MI) called for escalating the Obama Administration’s policies of US airstrikes against Pakistan’s tribal areas. On September 30, the Pakistani newspaper, The Frontier Post, wrote that the American air strikes “are, plain and simple, a naked aggression against Pakistan.”

The US claims that its forces in Afghanistan have the right to cross into Pakistan in pursuit of “militants.” Recently US helicopter gunships killed three Pakistani soldiers who they mistook for Taliban. Pakistan closed the main US supply route to Afghanistan until the Americans apologized.
Pakistan warned Washington against future attacks. However, US military officials, under pressure from Obama to show progress in the endless Afghan war, responded to Pakistan’s warning by calling for expanding the Afghan war into Pakistan. On October 5 the Canadian journalist Eric Margolis wrote that “the US edges closer to invading Pakistan.”

In his book, Obama’s Wars, Bob Woodward reports that America’s puppet president of Pakistan, Asif Ali Zardari, believes that terrorist bombing attacks inside Pakistan for which the Taliban are blamed are in fact CIA operations designed to destabilize Pakistan and allow Washington to seize Pakistan’s nuclear weapons.

To keep Pakistan in line, the US government changed its position that the “Times Square Bombing” was the work of a “lone wolf.” Attorney General Eric Holder switched the blame to the “Pakistani Taliban,” and Secretary of State Clinton threatened Pakistan with “very serious consequences” for the unsuccessful Times Square bombing, which likely was a false flag operation aimed at Pakistan.
To further heighten tensions, on September 1 the eight members of a high-ranking Pakistani military delegation in route to a meeting in Tampa, Florida, with US Central Command, were rudely treated and detained as terrorist suspects at Washington DC’s Dulles Airport.

For decades the US government has enabled repeated Israeli military aggression against Lebanon and now appears to be getting into gear for another Israeli assault on the former American protectorate of Lebanon. On October 14 the US government expressed its “outrage” that the Lebanese government had permitted a visit by Iranian President Ahmadinejad, who is the focus of Washington’s intense demonization efforts. Israel’s representatives in the US Congress threatened to stop US military aid to Lebanon, forgetting that US Rep. Howard Berman (D,CA) has had aid to Lebanon blocked since last August to punish Lebanon for a border clash with Israel.

Perhaps the most telling headline of all is the October 14 report, “Somalia’s New American Primer Minister.” An American has been installed as the Prime Minister of Somalia, an American puppet government in Mogadishu backed up by thousands of Ugandan troops paid by Washington. (Editor's bold emphasis throughout)

This barely scratches the surface of Washington’s benevolence toward other countries and respect for their rights, borders, and lives of their citizens.

Meanwhile, to silence Wikileaks and to prevent any more revelations of American war crimes, the “freedom and democracy” government in DC has closed down Wikileaks’ donations by placing the organization on its “watch list” and by having the Australian puppet government blacklist Wikileaks.
Wikileaks is now akin to a terrorist organization. The American government’s practice of silencing critics will spread across the Internet.

Remember, "they hate" us because we have "freedom and democracy", First Amendment rights, habeas corpus, respect for human rights, and show justice and mercy to all.

Key Components of Each Moral Act

all "3" must be licit in order for the moral act to be permissible (just).

The reigning (immoral) philosophy in the so-called "developed West" is Utilitarianism in which the "ends" desired dictate the use of any "means" available in the accomplishment of a given goal i.e. "the ends justify the means." This by the way was the calculus the Nazi's embraced!

The Nature of Morality as Philosophy

Perhaps the best way to conceptualize traditional morality is to view it as a systematic way of answering questions which ask what "ought" to be done from the perspective of right and wrong. Moral philosophy assumes therefore that notions of right and wrong, good and evil are real that is; exist, both independent of the "knower" and irrespective of time and place.

Furthermore, it claims that these moral absolutes or immutable moral norms are understandable that is, knowable by rational man as part of the natural (moral) law.

From a scholastic (Aristotelian/Thomistic) perspective "ought" questions always involve "3" elements; the object rationally chosen or proximate end, also referred to as means" the intent or further end and the circumstances.

In scholastic moral philosophy what ought to be done is strongly grounded in the nature of being that is to say the "ought" is based on the "is." From a practical perspective this means that the ought is circumscribed by the immutability of human nature that is, bounded by a fixed human anthropology. The essence of our human being then is presumed to be unchanging not evolving and is not relative to time or place. The Enlightenment needless to say wrecked havoc with this principle especially the post-Enlightenment philosophy of Utilitarianism and the post-modern tendencies toward subjectivism and moral relativism.

Finally, most decisions of any consequence made by individuals or groups have at least a moral component even if they are not primarily or fundamentally moral questions. For example, questions of public policy always involve morality since they of necessity ask what "ought" to be done--from the perspective of right and wrong--whether explicit or implied. Whenever we ask what ought we to do, not simply what can we do or is it possible to do; we have entered the realm of moral philosophy.

This site attempts to analyze current events from a moral perspective utilizing scholastic, specifically; Aristotelian/Thomistic moral reasoning.

Neomodernism Rejected

Much of Modern Philosophy Undermines the Genuine Goal of Humanity

NEO-MODERNISM: The Scourge of Western Culture

Noteworthy Quotes

"We have never had a free press. We have deluded ourselves. In the West we now have privatized censorship. There are hundreds of examples."

--Julian Assange

"Capitol Hill is Israeli Occupied Territory."

--Patrick J. Buchanan 6/15/90

“What George Orwell wrote about in 1984 has come true. What Eisenhower warned us about concerning the ‘military-industrial complex’ has come true...War is a permanent feature of our societal landscape, so much so that no one notices it anymore.”

Why do we spend so much on war when we supposedly can’t find the money to help the unemployed?”

--Former Congressman Alan Grayson

"War is a racket. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives."

--Major General Smedley Butler

"It's time to rid the world of Nuclear Weapons"

--Desmond Tutu

"Every human being has by virtue of their humanity a claim on the right to life, shelter, sustinance, work, and medical care since they all represent "goods" the absence of which prevent the full realization of each person's humanity."

--Dr. John P. Hubert

"And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."

--John F. Kennedy Inaugural Address

"Millions of people understand that both the Democrats and Republicans will not represent their interests in Congress."

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